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Um .... are you sure it is 'Parnell' you've booked? Was he Irish? The Secretary of
State at DWP is, I think, called 'Purnell'?

Ask him who is he when he arrives in the studio and please announce the correct
spelling on air just in case Scotland's 25+
New Deal unemployed have been writing
to the wrong man for the last 8-10 years.

And if it is indeed 'James Purnell MP' who
signs in: ask him why he never replies to
e-mail Enquiries copied to his MInisterial
Private Office on the advice of Helpdesk
officials in his own Department. A 'Deal'
is a deal - even if after to years it is no
longer 'New'- nor frankly very credible.

How's about a bailout for those of us
who were in the queue at Dundee's
New Deal launch by Gordon Brown,
Donald Dewar and Brian WIlson in
January 1998 before Mr Purnell (sic)
and his colleagues bail out bankers?

Algae used to be big business in Girvan -
but I think the market collapsed during
or after The Falklands War for reasons
I can't quite remember. Seaweed also
stabilises the froth on beer - so there
is more than one way that it mitigates
the impact of global warming I guess!

Further to post#!: Njall's New Deal saga
is available on DWP files and I have an
Icelandic sweater if that helps put the
proverbial rocket under Parnell's rear!

It strikes me that Councils have been telling porkies when they say they have no cash for local services. Oh well now they haven't.

It occurs to me that the technology for capturing carbon could have been found many years ago. The green party, Green Piece, Friends of the Earth, you know those people that everyone called nutters who having been telling us for decades about the mess we are making of the planet.

I keep hearing about cars sales declining and people opting for smaller economic cars. I have never had a car for less than ten years. The trouble is that it costs me more over that period to maintain the car than its original cost.

Why are governments not encouraging us to repair our mechanical aids rather than dumbing them when the colour is out of fashion? How many watch repairers (real watches that is), cobblers etc are left to pass on their skills? How many of us can sew or darn? "Now is the weinter of our discontent"

Sean (Frustrated)

So, the bankers are coming in on tonight's show. Please ask them to explain in 'minute particulars' the following:
1 why they have defrauded us all so spectacularly?

2 Ask them if they are aware that there are many people in jail for far far less and aren't they surprised that they are not in handcuffs?

3Ask them to explain clearly where 'their own' (ours in fact) money is right now so that we may follow suit?

4 Ask, have they got fort Knox type safes hidden in secret rooms in their multi million pound mansions (mansions bought with our money of course)?

5 Ask them if they have a private arrangement with perhaps the Vatican bank.

6 Please find out for viewers what is happening with Swiss bank accounts as I have heard nothing mentioned - also whose money is stashed away in them?

7 Please find out too where Gordon Brown has his wealth stashed (it is a perfectly pertinent and fair question given that it is his system, ultimately in league with Blair and Bush, that has exploded through eschewing real regulation.

8 While I think it is true that ‘Lord’ (outrageous that) Snooty Mandy had his recent kidney stone problem treated in NHS, can you find out for us, was he on a mixed open ward where it is impossible to sleep, or safely tucked up in a 'private’ side ward', safe too from being passed NHS super bugs (uniquely bad in Uk compared to rest of Europe mainly because the NHS still has wards)?

Finally, I suggest that Newsnight set up a big discussion on all the tried and tested alternative ways there are of doing things – given that the present banking system is so obviously fatally flawed , ideas like Mutual aid banks (building societies (sic) Credit Unions, Self build housing co-ops, shared ownership, barter and so on… These ideas need promoting and financing by a new and honest coalition government.
Yours truly - a very x Labor supporter.

PS
A proper riot could do the trick!

My local council installed grab rails for an
OAP in Dundee within four hours of care
workers suggesting this today. Perhaps
we need to close down Whitehall which
even after ten years hasn't cleared the
queue in the Wellgate Job Centre here
in Dundee when Gordon Brown's New Deal was launch by him personnally back in '98.

What is more: thanks to a defiant Liberal/
Labour coalition in Scotland followed by an
SNP Government, council tax is frozen here and personal care for the elderly is free. It
seems more important to safeguard such
local services than bailout irresponsible City slicker bankers earning massive bonuses in
London or sign blank cheques for Trident
submarines - which nobody really needs.

Why doesn't Labour scrap Trident - as a gesture to help pay for this bank bailout?
Brown should lead from the front - like
Alex Salmond - and focus on issues that
really matter to people like local councils.

HOW TO PUT THIS

From time to time, on this blog, we bewail the lack of a larger than life focal point to lift our nation above the political, with its dismal take on life generally, and lack of vision.

HARRY HART is not just some bloke who does algae, he is a seer of several decades standing who, in his mid seventies, refuses to give up on the vision of desert, sea and sun, yielding massive benefits to mankind, through the medium of algae.

HARRY HART has qualities that have gone AWOL in recent times - to the detriment of Britain, and the world.

'Harry Hart Studies' should be on the curriculum. We need to see his like rise again, if the rot is to be stopped.

Further to #4: have just fished out my old
Icelandic sweater and .... darn ... it has a hole in the elbow. But: I suppose I could
now send it back to Reykjavik for repairs
in this globalised world (except of course
that a Labour Government has closed the
local post office in The Nethergate). Darn!

NB There is a lot of algae in Iceland ..... I still think Bjork may have the last laugh!!

Don' the buses in Iceland run on hydrogen?

This is all so much fun after years of boring borrowing beyond our means. As we now transmogrify our lives back to the 18th Century (we've reached the end of mankind's brief era of cheap energy and, therefore, ludicrous levels of debt), I for one am now very much looking forward to a much simpler way of life. There is, however, the small problem of unwinding the earth's population from 6 billion or so back to a more sustainable 2 billion (that could hurt a bit) but, by and large, I'm very much looking forward to the New World Order. To hell with bankers; to hell with Ryanair; to hell with the 'global village'. Bring on The Good Life is what I say.

In Sweden savers have been promised by the Icelandic banks that they will not lose penny. Why is the UK being treated differently when we are all in this together. How many more countries are being let off the hook?

Could we have some sort of 'Rate This Blog' feature?

Some simple mechanism so we can register our contempt for the tedious egocentric fobgucks some wuckfads persist in flooding these forums with.

Financial directors and chief exec for coucils on average get paid more than the PM. They are paid to know how to invest their money. The bank was in Iceland, It was well known that there were problem. It is their problems the claim should be against the insurance of the advisors or the professional body (Professional Indemnity) of the finacial directors - not the tax payer.

It is not of course 'Gordon's plan' really, Kirsty .... as readers of the FT Economist's blog will be aware the idea of preference shares for the authorities in banks comes
from Charlie Calomiris in the US and he is
a former McCain adviser. A good idea still.

Other parts of the 'Brown plan' have been taken up late from suggestions made by
Alex Salmond up here in Scotland. I guess invoking anti-terrorism legislation to screw
Iceland is perhaps the only bit of the plan
not to have originated with the SNP .........

You really hit the nail on the head when you asked Purnell what exactly Iceland's assets
in the UK are, too. Sally Magunsson? Her brother Jon Magnusson who produces The
Graeme Norton Show? Are they all under house-arrest? Of course not - they are UK
citizens as well as being Icelandic! A much
better approach would have been to talk
to Iceland before declaring economic war.

Iceland is a member of the Bank of International Settlements in Basle
and the IMF - and it has also got
lines of credit through the Nordic
countries. They've been working
through their problems for some
months now. My advice would've
been not to panic. HM Government
is responsible for bank regulation
in the UK - so it is frankly playing
politics for Westminste to refuse
to guarantee the deposits of the
local authorities in Scotland who
have invested money in these UK
-registered Icelandic retail banks.

What are bonds & Treasury bills for?
And surely guaranteeing the small
but critical amounts deposited by
Scottish local authorities pales into
insignificance when compared to the
billions being pumped into The City.

Glad too that you pressed Purnell
on the issue of Executive Jobs. In
1998, after a 12 month delay from
DfEE/DWP in providing any answer
to the question I put to Ministers in
my local Job Centre when Gordon
Brown launched New Deal I was
told by The Scottish Office (Lord
Gus McDonald actually answers
letters!) that: 'As you know The
Executive and Professional Job
Vacancies register [which I had
asked to see in the Job Centre
as I was too old for The Black
Watch!] was privatised in 1984
and ceased to exist in 1989.'

The Scottish Office went on to
say as well that as job search
support was not devolved to
Scotland at that point and is
still a UK "Reserved Power"
(like bank regulation) they
could not help me further,
but suggested I refer the
matter to DfEE/DWP down
in London. In the Job Centre,
even Donald Dewar had been
a bit surprised to find that he
had no powers in this area -
a senior official present had
jumped in before he could respond to my question about seeing the job
vacancies register for executives and professionals and had told Dewar and me that as the DWP/DfEE's senior man in Scotland he 'reported to David Blunkett not to you Mr Dewar'.

Ten years on I am still waiting for them to sort out which part of the empire is the one I should be complaining to and asking for
careers advice. I am also still waiting for the British Council to provide me with my P45
for my role in the Palestine conflict down
in Gaza. Tony Blair got his P45 - so Mr Purnell: where the Hell is mine?

Mine is not of course an isolated case either.
Hundreds of bank executives will now be needing job search assistance from the DWP (or not since Purnell has privatised even more of their activities since I was
told in 1998 that 'the Executive and
Professional Job Vacancies register
was privatised in 1984 and CEASED
TO EXIST in 1989). [NB A lot of spivs
then moved from senior civil service
positions into key 'recruitment' firms].

And I am also not the only person to have been messed around by British Council - a publicly funded Quango head up by Neil
Kinnock and which used to have DfEE,
FCO and DfID Permanent Secretaries
on their Board of Trustees when some
of the employment issues featured on
this website were first brought to light:

Hey, it's Iceland night!

On the subject of energy (rather than the money they owe us); when people think of Climate Change, Iceland always gets mentioned as some sort of saviour -geothermal energy, hydro power, wind, wave- you name it, that country has it all. George Mombiot for instance, mentioned building some sort of super grid connected to the country. It's as though Iceland ceases to be country (with people, a democracy, wildlife, farms etc.) and is some sort of international possession we can use.

The fact is the country being covered in artificial trees isn't going to play - it simply wont happen. Industry is often resisted (Bjork and Sigur Ros held a concert against aluminium smelting) and even when people make a joke of 'foreign' protesters like 'Saving Iceland' who are against development, the smile quickly fades if you suggest extensive development of the country. The Icelanders have contradictory attitudes like anywhere else. As much as they have clean energy, they all love oil hungry and huge 4x4s (perhaps those days will be over). In the end, it's up to the Icelandic people and even with near bankruptcy, I don't expect many of them to turn the country over the Climate Change geo-engineers at the scale mooted in the film.

Still, with the credit crisis, Bill Clinton's comment about the age of big government being over seems like ancient history. With the climate crisis too, the 'big solution' people seem to be coming out too. The most crazy thing is that it's easier for them to envision these massive technological solutions than to expect modest changes in human behaviour. We've all been saluting the intractable 'I' for too long and one way or another it's leading us to hell in a handcart.

In my adult life I have experienced two recessions , both times caused by a housing bubble and the Bank of England having to apply the brakes with high interest rates.

Over the past 5 years we all knew house prices were rising faster than anyone's wages were , but the Bank of England this time did not stop it with high interest rates ,why ?

What has changed ?

That's what I want to know !

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